Richard tries to escape the pursuing balls of light by
maneuvering the hovercraft in various directions, but the strange creatures
cannot be shaken. The Chosen One turns to Robo, who is still immobile, and he
suddenly gets a brainwave. Remembering when Robo plugged his arm into the
hovercraft's socket, Richard takes Robo's arm and repeats the action. Suddenly,
a shower of dense steam appears out of nowhere and covers Richard, and he
notices quickly that the steam is incredibly cold. But before he could complain
about the frost on his armor, he notices that the balls of light have
disappeared.

Confused, Richard turns to Robo, who is "coughing" back to
life. The robot explains that the spheres of light were Pekods, sensory organs
of another being that are attracted to high ambient temperatures, and that Robo
had used a permabeam to lower Richard's temperature. Richard, while thankful,
hopes that they don't see the Pekods again so he won't get blasted by Robo's ice
beam again.

The duo continue flying over the fractured mirror terrain,
which eventually morphs into a massive red desert that seems to be made out of
plastic particles. As they fly over the dunes, Richard notices a new binary
message on Robo's control panel. Curious, Richard asks Robo where the messages
come from; Robo replies that he doesn't know because his memory banks were
damaged by the acid attack. When Richard inquires how Robo knows where the Cyber
Dimension exit is, Robo gives the same response.

It was then that Richard
notices something on the ground below them. At first concerned, he is relieved
to see it is nothing more than a small hole in the plastic desert. But his
relief is short-lived when an invisible force from the hole suddenly grabs
Richard and pulls him down towards it. Richard tries to grab Robo but is too
late to do anything.

The hovercraft and Robo recede into the distance as Richard
falls faster and faster until he is swallowed by the hole, where he continues
his descent into increasing darkness. As he falls, he sees strange objects
floating in the darkness around him. He tries to reach out and touch one, but he
pulls his hand back when the luminous object snarls at him to reveal razaor
sharp teeth. His journey comes to a sudden end when he lands on a massive pile
of plastic sand at the bottom. When he manages to get up, he notices he is in a
tunnel.

He hears a noise in the distance, like a mechanized
drumming. Deciding to look around, he spies one end of the tunnel that leads to
a distant and faint light. He follows this light until he emerges in a large
room lit up with a fluorescent red glow. He finds something familiar about the
place, and then he abruptly realizes that he recognizes the smell as the same
odor given off by the Pekods. To confirm his suspicions, countless balls of
light suddenly flood the chamber.

Richards tries to run away, but the
Pekods swarm over him and pin him to where he stands. He struggles, but the grip
of the balls of light is too strong, and the Pekods begin forcing him in the
direction of another tunnel. Despite their forcing him to move, Richard realizes
that the balls do not wish to harm him, and begrudgingly decides to let them
take him wherever they're leading him.

Eventually the Pekods take him to another chamber, where
they drop him and disappear down another tunnel. Richard sees the source of the
loud noise from earlier: a series of machinies lining the chamber's walls. As he
nervously waits in the chamber, he hears another sound. To his horror, he
recognizes the sound of footsteps belonging to something enormous. Suddenly, a
fierce red light envelopes the cavern as a monstrous creature enters. The
creature identifies itself as Mortex and demands to know who has entered its
citadel.

The creature seems to be made of molten metal, and its
hands were massive pincers. Mortex towers over Richard and examines him closely,
immediately recognizing Richard as the Chosen One. Richard backs away and draws
his sword, but Mortex only laughs, claiming Richard wants to play with him.
Mortex fires several fireballs at Richard, who dodges them easily, causing
Mortex to laugh in delight. Richard remembers Robo's message, but doesn't know
how it will help him.

Mortex fires a white beam of light from between his
eyes, which hits Richard and lifts him into the air. Mortex gleefully announces
that the Evil one will be pleased to see his prize. In desperation, Richard
throws his sword at Mortex, striking the creature dead on and causing it to drop
Richard to the ground. But Mortex seems happy at the competition, and doesn't
appear all that concerned when Richard picks up his sword and dashes past Mortex
into another tunnel.

With Mortex toying with Richard, the Chosen One races down
the tunnel and emerges in what appears to be a control room. Not knowing what
else to do, he starts haphazardly throwing switches and pressing buttons.
Mortex, upon entering the control room, suddenly grows serious as he screams for
the Chosen One not to touch anything, almost in a pleading tone.

Not listening, Richard continues throwing switches in a
desperate attempt to find a way out of the room. Just as Mortex screams for him
not to touch a specific button, Richard presses it and the room above the molten
creature collapses. Light bursts into the room as plastic sand falls into the
chamber on top of Mortex, burying him and melting to the creature's
body.

Richard, partially buried himself, watches as Mortex
struggles with the plastic coating when a metallic rope dangles from the hole
above. It's Robo, hovering above the hole with a harness. The Chosen One grabs
the rope and Robo begins to hoist him upward. As he is lifted, Richard takes one
more look at Mortex, who has ceased his struggle and lies still. Richard recalls
the binary message and realizes that the melted plastic had cut off Mortex's
oxygen supply, thereby snuffing out his fire.

Robo continues to hoist Richard out of the underground
citadel when suddenly there is a loud explosion. Beneath them, as Mortex's lair
begins to disintegrate, a jet of flame begins to rise from below, threatening to
engulf the dangling Chosen One. Richard urges Robo to hoist him faster, as his
grip on the harness slowly begins to loosen.

Comments:

The thirtieth
issue of The
Ancestral Trail introduces us to Mortex, the first main issue
creature that has direct ties to the Evil One. The first two creatures - Tengam
and Zenon - were similar to Hulkan and Stridor in that they were terrible
creatures that already existed in the world, and Flector, while likely having
some connection to the Evil One, didn't speak and therefore couldn't confirm
this suspicion. Mortex, on the other hand, explicitly declares his allegiance to
the Cyber Dimension's lord, which makes it clear that the Evil One knows that
Richard is in his world (if the Broon android didn't already make that clear
enough).

Concerning this issue, there is an interesting contrast between
the cover image of Mortex and the image used inside the issue's pages. The cover
image shows a crisp and clear view of Mortex against a contrasting purple-blue
background, letting us see Mortex's face vividly. The image on the inside,
however, shows a Mortex obscured by the heatwave surrounding his molten body,
making him almost blinding to look at. The reason for this contrast likely was
done because the page version of Mortex would look too blurry to look at for a
cover image, so a cleaned up version was used for the cover. While this does
work for a cover image, I have to say the blurred, page version of Mortex is the
preferred one, as it makes him look menacing and terrifying - something so
terrible and twisted that just looking at it is painful.